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Camera Lens Falls From Sky Through Roof Of Petaluma Home

A broken camera lens which fell through the roof of a Petaluma home. (Bay City News)

PETALUMA (CBS SF) – Petaluma police were working to track down the owner of a camera lens that apparently fell from the sky earlier this month, damaging a local family’s home.

Debbie Payne, 55, said she found the approximately two-pound, 9-inch Canon camera lens outside of her home on Friday, Sept. 2, after hearing a loud crash that shook the two-story house, left a hole in her roof and sliced through two window screens.

She said the noise was loud enough to startle her next-door neighbor, who quickly spotted a piece of the camera lens next to a truck parked in his driveway.

After reviewing Payne’s mailed-in police report on Wednesday, officers are now tracking the lens’ serial number and working with the Petaluma Airport and the Federal Aviation Administration to determine whether the part may have fallen from a plane.

Payne said she didn’t see any aircraft near her home at the time of the incident.

The longtime Petaluma resident said she hopes to recoup the $1,000 insurance deductible she paid to fix the damage to her roof and screens, which contractors estimated would cost about $4,500 to repair.

But mostly, Payne said, she’s grateful the lens didn’t cause further harm—especially since she lives about 200 feet from an elementary school.

“It would have killed someone, had there been someone underneath the lens,” she said.

A hole caused by a falling camera lens in the roof of a home in Petaluma. (Bay City News)

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said that while he’s never heard of a camera lens falling from an aircraft, objects such as plane parts and ice chunks do sometimes fall during flights, though rarely.

“This is an unusual occurrence—even proving this came from an aircraft could be difficult,” he said.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

True. Sky divers often carry extra lenses, flash cards, and batteries for their SLR/DSLR cameras for mid flight change. Sometimes a 28mm doesn’t cut it and you might need to throw the 10-22mm on there. Plus if you hit bugs on the way down you may need to clean your lens mid flight. I’m guessing that’s what happened.

None of what you said here is true. There is no time in a jump to carry out these sorts of changes, and the wind speed would make it impossible to do so anyway. Plus, hitting insects on the way down is virtually never a problem since insects aren’t found at altitude. If this lens fell from a skydiver’s camera, it fell simply because it was poorly attached before leaving the plane. You are an idiot.

Doesn’t look $4500.00 worth of damage I think someone is padding the bill to scam the insurance company. I am a contractor and based on the damage i see maybe 500 to a thousand in damage. 3 to 4 hours work two guys and $100.00 materials.

Funny how most of the overhead comes from all the permits needed for such a simple repair. What else can you expect when the government sticks its nose into everything and feels the need to put regulations on every little thing; and we wonder why businesses are hesitant to hire new employees?

you people really have no freakin idea what you are talking about, do you?

You really have to wonder why someone would take this much time to post something that bashes the government.

Weirdos are among us, tha’ts for certain.

Imagine how great the internet would be if ignorant people couldn’t post? I need to find myself some websites that keep the dopes out. If only new sites would do this. NYTimes does, and the discussions there are 10,000 X more valuable that what you get on sites like this. I know it costs $$ to monitor and moderate the posts, but it sure does make the experience better.

JC,You don’t need an engineer or plans to fix a fist sized hole in the roof. Your highly inflated estimate is pure bunk and you know it. You would lead us to believe that all contractors are thieves with that lame justification.
Shame on you.

Seriously? You believe all Pros use Canon? I have been a working professional for nearly 25 years and I shoot Nikon. I belong to a few professional organizations and the Nikon vs. Canon users is split just about 50/40 with more users using Canon. The other 10% use other systems such as Sony.
A real professional uses the system that works for them.

“The longtime Petaluma resident said she hopes to recoup the $1,000 insurance deductible she paid to fix the damage to her roof and screens, which contactors [sic] estimated would cost about $4,500 to repair.”

Well, that’s the problem. She should have contractors, not contactors, do this job for less.

So I ask again, why Alan? No need to reply Alan, I’ll answer for you. It’s because it doesn’t fit in to your statist, government nanny state world view that people do not require government interference into every minute aspect of their lives.

Alan, I’ve seen your comments and you appear to be partisan to the point of being irrational. The humor directed at the estimate is warranted because people know that regulation and confiscatory policies pass costs to the consumer. And American’s are well aware that California is mired in both regulation and taxation. 4,500 for this work IS suspect and should probably have been itemized for the readers. I’ll bet is not far off from the estimate above.

I think its pretty obvious where a 9 inch camera lens came from. High altitude surveillance airship. They have dozens of these UAV airships parked above almost every major city all over the US, just sit there in the stratosphere monitoring all communications etc watching and tracking you and everything you do. Just look it up. Google high altitude surveillance airship.

That lens looks like a Canon 16-35mm. I am a professional photographer, and that is one of the most common lenses that I and other Canon shooters use. I suspect that this fell from a helicopter (door open, fell out of camera bag or something similar) or a hot air balloon or a bi-plane. This probably would not have been attached to a commercial aircraft–especially on the outside. Also, this isn’t space junk. Space junk would have been at least partially burned from atmospheric re-entry. This is just an odd accident in my opinion–and a costly one for the photographer and the home owner (who, by the way, very well could have a legitimate $4,500 claim–we probably don’t have all of the damage photos here).

Hole in roof = 1 piece of plywood, some roofing paper, and replacement tile or shingles.
Average cost for constructing a roof in the U.S. = $10-$20/sqft, including labor. Assuming you remove 1 full 4ftx8ft plywood sheathing and replace with new material, its 32sqft. 32sqft x 20 = $640 times 2 for removal rather than just building = $1280. 2 torn screens = $100/screen.

Use some common sense people. Geesh. 4500 is a lame-assed contractor hyping up the cost to profiteer off the insurance companies tendencies to pay virtually any and all claims these days. Its the Un-American way unfortunately that too many people engage in these days.

A new fad is to attach a camera to a large helium weather balloon and to program the camera to take pics every few seconds. the pics are quite amazing; however, once must track down the balloon…usually a gps transceiver is used to track such a camera box/balloon down once it is out of reach. Follow-up with Canon to determine ownership of the camera…that is if the owner registered it.

It didn’t fall, it was launched Look at the exit damage, to the right, where the left has no exit… it looks projected or launched much faster than 14 feet per second which is the constant rate at which things fall, however if they are thrown or launched at an angle much higher speed are attainable. someone shot that thing into the air, and it catapulted in the air and it settled at an angle in there roof. Someone probibly took a potato launcher and shot that thing into there house!

You must have been sleeping in physics class, or never woke up for it. Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2 and this is constant, but that constant acceleration does not mean that VELOCITY is constant, in fact it means it is constantly increasing. Given the weight of the lens it wouldn’t really need to have fallen from that high of an altitude to cause a good deal of damage.

It is generally accepted that liberals do this kind of stuff. The home owner apparently will need a stimulus package to overcome the pain and suffering of this damage. The Obama cae will kick in and charge her for having mentioned anything about it. It was probably someone on a hand glider taking pictures and whoops, I lost my lens.

There is something called “home owners insurance,” but noooooo. The police are going to spend thouands of dollars of resources to track this person down ! How stupid, and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
I doubt somebody in a hot air baloon was hanging over the side of the gondola looking for an “ideal target” house to throw a $1,000. canera at.
This could only happen in Goofy Kollifornia !

Next, they’ll sue the lens manufacturer for making an illegal weapon. Then they’ll sue the delivery companies and the sellers and resellers for trafficking it. $4,500? BAH! Don’t take us Californians for granted – let’s make it $45,000,000,000 – now, that’s more like it! Re-Elect Comrade Obama!

Maybe this is a Obummer stimulus program ?? he has told he’s people to go out and buy expensive lens, rent planes, through the lens out the plane make sure you hit wood roofs and wahla you start the economic engine running. I wonder if this is his payback for the roofers union vote?

Could this lens be a remnant of the old Gemini missin that lost a camera?
NASA may or not know, but worth asking.
Camera was a Hasselblat, withextra film pack back, batteries, and body and double lenses, which could have been part of the fireball also seen.

dude I think it fell off a satellite. You know, a spy satellite. Not the expensive military kind as they would not use an ordinary lens, but it’s more likely the consumer grade kind of spy satellite that requires someone to manually zoom the lens in and out, and change lenses while spacewalking, and occasionally drop one from orbit. you know, that kind of satellite.